


Darkness

by arby



Series: Darkest Before Dawn [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Episode: s01e06 Skin, M/M, Torture, Wincest - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-11-13
Updated: 2006-07-23
Packaged: 2017-10-02 16:05:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arby/pseuds/arby
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The worst thing the shapeshifter did to Sam is to give him hope. When that died, part of Sam died with it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> AU for _Skin_, which to this day is the episode that inspired me the most in the whole series. Originally published on Livejournal [here](http://arby-m.livejournal.com/8107.html).

Sam kept repeating to himself _it's not him, it's not Dean_, as the thing wearing his brother's body like an ill-fitting suit came closer. It traced the contours of Sam's jaw lovingly.

"Sammy boy, oh so pretty," it crooned. Dean's eyes were hazed, feverish in its stolen face. "I'm gonna make you pay for leaving us. And I'm gonna enjoy every minute of it."

The shapeshifter continued down to cup the base of Sam's neck. Dean's hand (_not Dean, not Dean_) was unexpectedly warm and a little bit rough. Sam tried not to shiver at the sensation.

"So pretty, like a girl," it went on in a creepy singsong. "You make me want to do naughty things to you, like I do to them. Will you scream like a girl when I cut you, Sammy?"

Sam turned his head, refused to answer. The creature took out a big, curved knife and pressed the cold blade to Sam's cheek.

"C'mon, won't you scream for me, just a little?" it said in a grotesque mockery of Dean's teasing. The knife began to move, excruciatingly slowly, but didn't break the skin yet.

"You're not him. You're not my brother." Maybe he could distract it by arguing, stall for time. Dean would be looking for him, if he was still alive. (_He's alive. Don't even think otherwise. You'd know if he wasn't._)

"Oh, but I _am_. I'm everything he's too scared to be."

The shapeshifter pressed a little bit harder. Sam felt the skin of his cheek parting beneath the blade like a piece of steak on someone's dinner plate. It was a thin line of fire being scored into him. This was repeated on the other side of his face, like some kind of tribal marking. Part of his mind tried to picture it, categorize it, file it neatly away in his mind where it couldn't hurt him. Then the pain stopped. The knife went away and was replaced by a finger that rubbed speculatively in the blood on the right side of his face.

"A girl would be begging me not to hurt her by now. Actually, they all start begging pretty quick, even the ones that think they're tough. They're afraid I'm gonna rape them." It smiled, slowly and with obscene relish. "They don't know that what I'm really gonna do is worse. You're scared too, but _you_ seem to think if you hold out long enough, he'll come to your rescue. Just like he always has. Also a typically stupid female sentiment if I ever heard one."

The bloody finger stroked across Sam's mouth, gently, first one lip and then the other, like a girl applying lipstick on a friend. Then a hand gripped Sam's chin roughly, turned his head to make him look. The shapeshifter's eyes glittered madly in Dean's face.

"I got news for you little brother," it growled, in that low voice Dean used when he was trying not to get _really_ mad, "No one's coming for you. No one even knows where you are. I'm the only one you got left. So you'd better start acting like you want to live, get it?"

Sam looked it full in the face. If it killed him, at least he'd go out fighting. He had his family's reputation to maintain, after all.

"I'm not scared of you, asshole. And you're _not_ my brother."

Something deeply insane flared inside its eyes. Then the light flickered out, to be replaced by something far more disturbing - a calm, purposeful look. Dean's jaw set. It let go of him.

"Oh, so that's how you want to play, then? Okay. We can work with that. Defiant, oh so brave? Sure, be that way."

It stopped in front of Sam and stared into his eyes, a snake hypnotizing its prey, for what seemed like an eternity. Despite himself Sam sank deeper and deeper into that hazel gaze, so soothing, so comfortingly _Dean_ did it feel. It was slowly approaching him, almost imperceptibly drawing nearer, and it didn't seem so threatening after all. It was just Dean, he of the tousled spikes for hair and aquiline nose, he who punched Sam's arm and wrestled him to the ground now and again, the only one who'd always been there for Sam, and here he was, even in the darkest hour when no hope of rescue seemed possible, here came Dean to save the day. Like a good princess Sam waited for his arms to be untied, to be helped out of the chair, but instead Dean's mouth parted slightly and his eyes closed and suddenly they were kissing, Dean was kissing him, urgent and possessive, like he wanted Sam all for himself. Something long-clenched inside Sam began to loosen, the rigid tamped-down fear of being abandoned, of not being loved, began to uncoil slowly, like a fiddlehead unfurling into a fern. Dean _did_ love him after all, in that way he wasn't supposed to want, and the feeling of relief was so strong it was heady, exhiliarating. He was melting under the gentle, insistent heat of his brother's lips upon his, like an ice cube on the stove when it was just barely on, the way they used to keep it when they couldn't afford to use the radiator, huddled around the stove with their hands out over it, touching, and then Dean would take Sam's hands in his bigger ones and blow on them, and his breath was a tiny flame in the vast cold darkness.

Sam wanted to cry, it was so achingly sweet, all the things he had never allowed himself to feel before bubbling up inside him in response to this, and Dean's hand on the back of his neck was so gentle, he rubbed his finger back and forth on Sam's nape as if to smooth away all the hurt there'd ever been; the Mom-shaped absence at the center of their lives was erased; Dad was healed and whole and they weren't eternally on the run; demons and ghosts were just stories little kids told each other for fun at night around the fire on their Boy Scout trips. _Everything is okay_, that touch said. And Sam realized he was crying, and Dean was holding him, stroking his hair and murmuring in his ear in low tones, "It's okay Sammy, I got you. Don't worry little bro, you're safe now."

 

But he couldn't move his arms, his lips tasted of metal and salt, his own blood drying stickily on them, and then he knew he was still tied to a chair in a sewer in the middle of nowhere, and the thing caressing him that looked like Dean had probably killed his brother. And when he drew back in sudden horror as he came to himself, its face contorted with anger and it punched him, hard, in the face - the blow made his ears ring and he almost vomited with the resurgence of hatred and disgust, now combined with despair, grief and self-reproach, that boiled up inside as he remembered all over again _it's not him, it's not Dean_.

_You let it kiss you_, a little voice said. _You thought it was Dean, and that moment was the happiest you've felt in months_.

"You little brat!" the shapeshifter snarled. "What's the matter with you? I know you want me too - it's written all over your face."

Sam said nothing. He felt unutterably weary. If it was going to kill him, why wouldn't it just shut up and do it already?

"God, people think I'm sick just because I enjoy a little bondage and torture now and then, but what about you? Your whole _family_ is perverted - Dean's always wanted to touch you in wrong, dirty ways, you know. I'm just taking advantage of this situation to do what he would have done if he had the chance."

It smiled with loathsome satisfaction. The sight of that smile on Dean's face made Sam feel queasy.

"I think about sucking your dick as I lie awake at night, jerking off. It's always been just you and me, Sammy. And it always will be. Me and Dad, we're never going to let you go.

"You think you can get away from us? Look what happened when you tried to have a 'normal' life," the voice was sneering, bitter but he could see the hurt in Dean's eyes, "you drove Dad away and killed your precious little girlfriend. I'm just giving you what you deserve for thinking anyone could ever love you but me."

Finally Sam gave up. He closed his eyes and tried to go far, far away in his mind. To let himself float up to the ceiling like a balloon, untethered by the ballast of his body. Shut out the hateful words in his brother's voice, let the thing do what it would with that sack of meat.

It was just starting to work when something grabbed his arm. Hopelessly, he opened his eyes, resigned to some fresh torment. Someone who appeared to be Dean was untying him. Sam felt leaden, as if he were the one pretending to be someone else. He stared dully ahead of him, still convinced it was a trap, as he (_it_) urged him to get up, put an arm around his shoulders, and helped him limp out of the sewer. Even when he saw the shapeshifter's body lying on the ground, half-melted and barely recognizable, it didn't convince him that what was happening was real.

The real Sam was left behind in the chair, always in that chair, and the shapeshifter was taunting him, hurting him and kissing it better, over and over.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was majorly revised after posting - over a year later ([here](http://arby-m.livejournal.com/15633.html), on Livejournal). I have the original version on my LJ for posterity's sake, but I think this one is much better. It also got me unstuck so I could finish the entire series, so I feel fondly towards it for that reason.

The sight was so absurd he nearly laughed, or wanted to - Sam with his face painted like a clown or a kid caught in Mommy's Makeup. He had garish red circles on his cheeks and lips smeared red as if with lipstick. But it wasn't blush, or lipstick, but blood.

A low growl sounded oddly familiar in his left ear, and he whipped around on automatic and shot once, twice through his own heart. Something with his face cringed back and fell, awkwardly writhing insectile on the slimy sewer floor until its collapsing chest started sprouting bones like mushrooms out of a rotten log. Dean's roast beef sandwich threatened to make a round trip and he turned away, gagging despite himself at the putrid, putrefying stench of its dissolution.

Sam was so still. The belt around Dean's chest tightened another notch.

"Hey! Sammy - " He scrambled to untie the knots, reached for his knife when he saw one on the floor, a big brass curved sucker with serrated teeth. _Sweet knife_, the hunter in him automatically noted. Snatching it up he sliced - she bit through the thick rope with ease.

He grabbed Sam's arm. _Shit shit shit I'm too late._ Sam opened his eyes but nobody was home.

"Sam, talk to me bro - I'm gonna get you out of here, okay?"

Dean examined him briefly but didn't see any cuts other than the ones on his cheeks - no gaping gut wound or anything obviously life-threatening. Dean's fear only ratcheted higher at that.

"Goddamn it Sam! Don't you do this to me. You are **NOT** allowed to give up. Winchesters don't give up."

Getting him to the car wasn't so bad - almost an old familiar ritual, the drag-sweep rhythm of Sam's legs on the pavement, Sam's bony hip stabbing him in the side. But usually Sam was either out cold or cursing up a storm. So Dean tried to make up for it.

"Fuck you, dude. Seriously. I'm going to kill you for scaring me like this." He creaked open the door and laid his brother down on the seat, propped his head up. _Got to get out of here, get someplace safe..._

"HIGHWAY TO HELL!" Dean bawled along with Angus as obnoxiously as he possibly could, watching his brother out of the corner of his eye. Sam just kept staring at a point a million miles away. _He's in a fugue state, or something like that._ It was as if he couldn't even blink, though maybe he was doing it when Dean wasn't looking, like one of those haunted dolls that were so irritatingly frisky the second they were out of sight. It was flat-out creepy, was what it was, like a zombie had replaced his brother.

After what seemed like years they finally made it back to the motel. Dean sat Sammy down on the far bed. Grabbed a washcloth from the bathroom, wetting it warm but not too hot, he knelt between Sam's legs.

"Hey there." Tried to catch Sammy's eye. No dice.

"It's me, Dean." _Nada._

"Goddamn it, what did that bastard _do_ to you?"

Sam stared into space as if the world of nothingness beyond his nose was more real than the room he was in. Dean ground his teeth until they squeaked and began wiping off the blood. When he touched the cuts Sam flinched almost imperceptibly, but said nothing. A bruise was blooming on his cheek below the right eye. Dean wanted to kill something; in hindsight he regretted the shapeshifter's relatively easy death.

When he got to the blood on Sam's mouth, Sam closed his eyes almost expectantly. _Maybe he's just getting ready to slip into a coma because that thing gave him some drug that makes K look like fucking Smarties_, Dean thought with a dull, seething rage that colored his vision slightly bloody, like a darkroom light.

Finally Sam's face was clean, but his clothes were filthy with sewer water, the shapeshifter's foul slime and God only knew what else. Dean looked at him for a minute, then went into the bathroom to run the bath, making it mostly hot. When he came back, hell, every time he left Sammy even for a moment, he hoped against hope there would be some change in his condition. And every time he was bitterly disappointed and more and more worried about him.

"All right, Jesus, I guess I've got to do everything - let's get you cleaned up."

He stripped off Sam's outer shirt, then the t-shirt underneath. Sam was poseable, like a doll or a robot, he moved his limbs as requested and left them there until they were moved again. Dean tugged him upright and undid his fly. Despite himself, despite everything, it seemed a little weird to be undressing Sam at this age. Part of him was all business, set in big-brother-caretaker mode, but another part of him was standing by, watching, seeing maybe too much.

"Hey, I know you're not yourself; it's not like I'm doing this for fun." He pulled Sam's jeans down and tried not to think about why the thought of undressing Sam for fun made him feel five kinds of funny inside.

"Oh and by the way, if it turns out you're fucking with me you are so dead." He pushed Sam gently back onto the bed and knelt to remove his shoes, then pull off his pants.

Finally Sammy sat on the bed in nothing but boxers, a skinny, vulnerable catatonic. Looking at him Dean felt a wrench of pity stab in his chest. Sam was shivering in that uncontrollable way as if the cold had seeped into his bones. _Enough dithering - get him into a warm bath already_, he heard Dad's voice in his head, loud and clear.

He took Sammy's hand and pulled him upright, then led him into the bathroom. The water was very hot, maybe too hot - he turned off the hot and ran the cold faucet for a minute until it seemed reasonable. Finally he turned back to Sam, who stood mutely with that look Dean had already come to hate with a helpless, furious terror.

"Okay, let's do this," Dean muttered to himself. The silence was wigging him out more than anything. In one swift motion he pulled off Sam's boxers, then nudged first one foot, then the other, to get them off. Tried not to look as he lifted Sammy's foot into the bath, then stood up and pushed gently to make him step in, and kept the pressure on until the long legs collapsed slowly down into the steaming water.

"Okay, now we're getting somewhere. Where's that washcloth?"

Dean got it from the dresser, rinsed it clean in the sink, and unwrapped the cheap hotel soap. Sam sat crunched up like a grasshopper in the tub that was way too short for him, but at least he had stopped shivering. Dean soaked up some water with the washcloth and started squeezing it out over his back.

 

* * * * *

Half an hour later, Sammy was all cleaned up, dressed in boxers and t-shirt, and in bed. He closed his eyes on command, while Dean sat up waiting for the nightmares to begin. It was only a matter of time, after all. After two hours his ass was sore from the hard wooden chair and his neck strained from jerking back to consciousness every ten minutes. Sam appeared to be really asleep - at least, he wasn't thrashing or muttering. Dean felt like he was letting Sam down, but he couldn't keep his eyes open any longer. He crawled into the next bed like a lizard going to ground under a rock, and the second his head hit the pillow felt the whirlpool of sleep suck him down into the darkness.

He dreamed he was the shapeshifter, holding Sammy down, hurting him, and the tears rolled down Sam's face like rain. The sight of them made Dean want to soothe the pain away. Instead he took out the big brass knife and stabbed it into the ground next to Sam's head, over and over, as if to kill the thing inside himself that made him want to touch Sam in ways he wasn't supposed to think about. Sam just looked up at him with those wounded eyes and pleaded, "Don't stop," and suddenly they were kissing, and it was vivid and sensual and far too real. Dean let a shuddering breath that he didn't know he'd been holding out into Sam's mouth and said, "I won't, Sammy, I'll never stop."

Then he heard Sam's voice again, low and desperate, talking to someone else from across the room, and Dean somehow flung himself out of bed and was sitting next to Sam's before even fully waking. Sam wasn't thrashing, he was holding unnaturally still, and he was saying with pitiful defiance, "You're not him, you're _not_ my brother. I don't care if you kill me."

Dean wondered if he should wake him up yet or let him try to exorcise the demon in his dream first. At least he was talking, even if it was to that evil bastard. It occurred to Dean that waking Sam up now might just confuse him even more How could he prove himself to Sam? What on earth could he say that the shapeshifter hadn't already twisted out of all recognition?

Suddenly Sam sat bolt upright, eyes wide and sightless, and started gasping for air like a fish. Dean touched his shoulder and Sam flinched. _Fuck this noise_, Dean thought. "Sammy, wake up. Hey, Sam, wake up, wouldya?"

He stroked Sam's hair; it was soft and ticklish under his palm. Sam drew in a single harsh, staggering breath, like someone with asthma or emphysema, and started to cry. Dean put his arms around his brother as Sam wept with hoarse, choking sobs that sawed at Dean's insides in long, jagged cuts like the serrated knife. He bit back the sorrow clawing at his own throat and clung to Sam's thin frame as if for dear life. They were castaways in the middle of the ocean, spinning and drifting on the little motel bed. At some point sleep drew its merciful curtain down on them and Dean didn't remember any more.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is really a terrible tease - you pretty much have to continue to _Freak_ to get any closure on the story. Unless you really love extreme angst and hopelessness. Originally published on Livejournal [here](http://arby-m.livejournal.com/13453.html).

When he woke up with his arms full of sleeping Sam, Dean thought his self-control had finally snapped. _Oh God, oh God, please say I didn't..._his guilty mind babbled, before remembering what had happened. _Jesus_. He was simultaneously almost giddy with relief and sobered by the memory of how broken Sam had been. But it was hard to think about that, or seriously about anything, when just lying there with Sammy felt so amazingly good, and that scared him. If there was one lesson about life he'd learned, it was that nothing good can last. And the better anything felt now, the more it would hurt when it inevitably went away. He thought he'd long ago grown accustomed to that fact. Anyway, of all the impossible things he could ever want, this was undoubtedly the worst. And even if by some miracle something could ever happen, Dean couldn't afford to be distracted like this all the time - not if he wanted either of them to live much longer.

Still it was hard to tear himself away, knowing this would never happen again. Already he missed it in anticipation. He tried to get back to reality, focus on some pressing, urgent matter. Okay. He had to take a leak - that would do. And Sam's warm, snuggly presence wasn't helping his piss-hardon any, either. Gently he began to extricate himself from the tangle of intertwined limbs and ease over to the side of the bed. It seemed to take forever, but finally he managed to slip out. Sam sighed in his sleep and turned over to clutch the pillow like a little lost boy. Dean watched him for a long moment, studying the angles of his face, at peace for once, before going into the bathroom. He was in there a while, and when he came out Sam was awake.

He was staring at the ceiling as if wishing it would rain fiery death upon him, and while he was much more present than he had been the day before, there was a barricaded, distant look in his eyes that Dean didn't like one bit.

"Hey, Sam."

"Hi."

His tone was…not _cold_, exactly, but far too casual for someone who'd been to hell and back the night before. Dean would have reacted that way himself - pushing it away, not dealing - but he wanted more for Sam. Through the blinds the sunlight streamed in, almost obscenely bright, turning the dust motes that floated above his brother's face into a small storm of glittering gold.

"Do you, uh, want to talk about it?" Dean had no idea what he would say if Sam said yes, but fumbled on nonetheless.

"About what, yesterday? Not really." He didn't move at all. His voice was low and a little cracked still from crying. "I don't really remember much, anyway."

Possible, but Dean didn't buy it. Sam was far too traumatized for someone who didn't remember anything about being tortured by the shapeshifter, at least unconsciously. Dean wondered how much he remembered about last night, and what happened after.

_Fine_. If Sammy wanted to play it cool, Dean was fine with that. Maybe he remembered everything and was embarrassed that Dean had seen him falling apart - that would be understandable. Or maybe he remembered nothing after being rescued, but finding himself clean and in different clothes, had done the math. It was probably better for both of them in the long run not to get into that grey area that led to things they didn't want to talk about, and some things were definitely better left unsaid. The ordeal was over and done with, and would never happen again, so what was the point of keeping the wounds open? Sam would get back to normal in a few days. And Dean would stop feeling bad about it eventually. He'd put it away in his leaden box of aches with the rest of his wounds, after a while it would harden to a scar and he wouldn't care so much.

Despite himself he wondered what might have happened if he hadn't gotten up, if Sam had woken up in his arms. If, if, if - what a stupid, useless little word. That road led nowhere but Awkwardsville. Let Sammy pretend that nothing had happened, if that helped him put it behind him. Dean would survive - he always did.


End file.
